Flexible Working, Professional Success and Being Female: Are They Incompatible?

Abstract

The UK's flexible working strategy has developed progressively since 2000, reflecting changes in the economic, political and social climate. Research has shown employees to be concerned about the effects of flexible working on career success. This paper (N=266 & N=1093) examined male, female, managerial and non-managerial evaluations of employees who either used flexible working practices, worked long hours or worked regular hours. It also compared attitudes towards employees and their perceived success as a function of the reason as to why they used flexible working practices. Results showed individuals working the longest hours were perceived to significantly outperform all those who worked regular hours or who took part in some kind of flexible working option. Women with caring responsibilities were consistently viewed as less productive and more likely to leave their employment than men. Findings on promotion show overwhelming bias towards long hours being compatible with career success. Despite the positive effects on work performance, the effects of working long hours are recognised as detrimental to work-life balance. The implications for women in the workplace and work-life balance policy are further discussed.

Perceptions of Mothers’ Work Choices

“…Society views a successful career using the male career model, which does not take into account marriage, pregnancy, and raising children (Waumsley& Houston, 2009). The mothers participating in the study reexamined their own determination of career success and family balance and believed they had made the right choice.…”

Social capital, human capital, and career success in public relations in Taiwan

“…Although objective criteria have dominated much of the career success literature, subjective criteria have increasingly been adopted within career success research (Greenhaus, 2002;Hall, 2002). Many people may desire less tangible, subjective outcomes, such as work -life balance (Waumsley, 2009), as well as a sense of meaning (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001) and contribution (Hall & Chandler, 2005) from their work. Friedman and Greenhaus's (2000) study on business professionals who evaluated the relative importance of 15 indicators of their career success showed five dimensions of career success: status, time for self, challenge, security, and social.…”

Beyond gender: reconceptualizing understandings of work–life balance and the extreme work model for 21st-century high-potential top earners

“…The most frequent external variables identified in the literature include lack of mentoring and sponsorship (Hom et al, 2008;Meyers, 2015;McDonald and Westphal, 2013), exclusion from informal networks (Cook and Glass, 2014;Fain, 2011;Kulich et al, 2015), lack of flexibility (Klettner et al, 2016;Waumsley and Houston, 2009;Williams et al, 2013), motherhood penalties (Budig et al, 2012;Kmec et al, 2014;Kricheli-Katz, 2012;Stone and Hernandez, 2013), gender stereotyping (Burke and Major, 2014;Branson et al, 2013;Heilman, 2001), the male-centered work ethos (Cahusac and Kanji, 2014;Cabrera, 2009;Kelly et al, 2010;Widera et al, 2010) and the glass ceiling (Cook and Glass, 2014;Fain, 2011;Kulich et al, 2015;Sabharwal, 2013).…”